"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Zad screamed violently as his very being was dragged back into Zero Point—the domain after death.
The pain of his neck snapping, his spine shattering in half, was all too real. He felt every moment of it.
His scream warped and distorted, echoing across the void. He screamed curses in every imaginable way. The pain...
Death is pain, he thought a thousand times in his head.
"Ugh... ha... did... I die again?"
"That damn mysterious cloaked person killed me!"
He began to remember what happened. He had confessed to the witch—his ability, or curse, to return from death—and suddenly, everything had spiraled out of control.
"I saw myself... as a demon."
He remembered the flashes. The reflection on the guard's spear. The twisted teeth. The horns.
"So I actually died again... and this time, because I spoke."
"Hey, Shaytan!" he shouted into the void.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me I can't tell anyone?!"
...Nothing.
"Damn it... damn it!"
Everything had happened too fast. Too damn fast. And that mysterious cloaked figure—it was the one who killed him this time. Not the executioner.
"What the hell was their deal, anyway? How did they even break their chains?"
Zad remembered the first loop. That same figure had done absolutely nothing, just stood there. Silent. Now, in the second loop, They killed Zad.... for turning into a demon.
Slowly, painfully, Zad began to piece things together.
"First... let's confirm the facts."
Panicking wouldn't help. He had to push through the insanity, through the unreality. To make any progress, he had to accept this world for what it was and move forward.
"I can question things later. When I have time to breathe. For now, I have to escape this damn execution."
He started forming a plan, step by step.
"Let's line up the prisoners. First, the clown. Second... red hair—the one who laid his head down willingly. Third, the old man, the one crying about his wife and kids. Fourth..."
He flinched.
"Amal. Fifth, the androgynous one with the cyan hair... what were they?"
"Sixth, the witch. Emil."
"Seventh—me."
"Eighth, the one who just killed me. The one I should probably be most wary of."
"Ninth, Leon. Amal's friend."
"And tenth... Saifan. The golden-haired noble."
"I think I got them all... from what I remember."
Zad slowly, but surely, began to realize the madness of the situation had to be accepted. If he didn't accept it, it would break him. Now that he accounted for all the prisoners, the next step:
"Hexant..."
He remembered what Emil, the witch, had told him. Not just Hexant—Origins, Originators. It seemed these were the powers of this world. He still had no clue what they truly meant, but at least the pieces were coming together.
"Now... this place I'm in."
He recalled a few people calling it "Agrabiyya." A town? A city? A kingdom? What kind of land was this?
Maybe... just maybe... another wave of knowledge would soon arrive.
...
"Nothing, huh... useless."
"Well, I guess in Zero Point, it's just me in all this darkness."
He glanced around the void. It didn't matter much. It always felt the same—just darkness, and in front of him, a faint screen or mirror. A ghostly surface showing the moments before his death, played through his own eyes like some twisted theatre.
"In conclusion: I'm being executed for the supposed crime of killing a town governor. And I'm seventh in line."
"Most importantly... I can't tell anyone about this curse, or power, or whatever it is. Otherwise, that'll happen again."
He said that would happen, but even now, he hadn't fully grasped what that was. He'd only seen the fear in their eyes. How they fled. How the witch recoiled. How everything spiraled.
But then, suddenly—like a whisper from the dark, like a cruel trick played out of boredom—he was given knowledge. Maybe pity. Maybe amusement. But it came anyway:
"Shaytans, or demons, are the roots of all evil. If their presence is confirmed, anyone near them is marked for death. Pure evil cannot exist in the real world without collapsing it. That's why evil must be feared. That's why people panic. Because to stand near a demon is to die."
Zad realized it instantly.
"So that's how it was..."
"Wait—who's even feeding me this information?"
He looked around again. Was someone there? Was this a voice? Or did the knowledge simply arrive in his head?
"…I guess I can't focus on this too much right now. Resurrection's starting soon."
He remembered something—her voice, clear in his memory:
"By turn, I could make a deal with him too," Emil muttered, half to herself. "But I'd rather not see the demon in person. Witches and demons don't exactly get along... not face to face. A voice is enough. Just a whisper through the dark. If one ever showed up here in the flesh—"
She glanced around nervously.
"People would panic. They'd go mad. Evil like that isn't meant to exist in the real world."
She said that. Exactly like that. He remembered now.
"So that's why she was scared of me… I must've looked like one. Or worse… I became one."
The thought disturbed him. His primal fear denied it. He didn't want to admit he turned into a demon. That felt too cruel. Too twisted for someone with his past.
"That damn witch… she could've at least warned me about how demons are seen. But... no, this was my fault. I told her. She did say she didn't want to meet one in person."
"Ugh, useless."
"I need to focus. First, I need to get the hell out of here. At least now, I know the cloaked figure is suspicious. Maybe I can't trust them. But if he could break the chains like that—without even trying—it means they had a way out this whole time.They just didn't use it."
Zad thought carefully. Someone that strong, in the middle of an execution lineup? It didn't make sense. Why did that figure do nothing in the first loop… but kill Zad in the second?
Everything was too strange. Too twisted. But he had a goal now.
"I need to get wine to the witch. By any means possible. And... I think I have an idea. Maybe it'll work."
Point of resurrection. Just fifteen minutes before his execution. Confirmed.
"Back again. So my time limit is still fifteen minutes. I need to move. Focus."
"But I can't get used to dying." His voice cracked.
"I can still feel it. The snap of my neck. It was horrible."
"No one comes back to life without paying a price. And that's what scares me. I feel like... I feel like there's something more to it."
Somewhere far away, something laughed. But Zad couldn't hear it.
"Ah... Zero Point is breaking again."
The pain hit.
Bells rang. Not in his ears, but in his soul. A divine toll. The weight of judgment. A voice echoed across dimensions, fracturing reality like glass.
"I'm being pulled again!"
"This time—this time—"
Agrabian ko mesonis.
Go back, slave. If you die again, you shall find another answer.
Zad screamed.
His voice broke. Split. Echoed through a thousand copies of himself, each one howling in terror.
Light.
A blinding light.
Then—
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
He gasped.
Air surged into his lungs. Sand scraped against his tongue. He coughed. Panicked. Alive.
The world was too bright. Too loud. Too real. He felt every grain of sand on his skin. Every beat of his heart.
"Haa... haa..."
"Yo, big bro! Are you okay?!"
Amal.
He blinked. Looked up.
"...I'm back again," he said with a smile.
A smile he didn't realize looked terrifying.